A NATION CHALLENGED: THE INTERVIEWS

By JODI WILGOREN

Published: November 15, 2001

The interviews will take place in homes, not police stations. Miranda rights need not be read, though lawyers are welcome to sit in. Interpreters should be provided. Do not ask about religion. Do ask about violence and terrorism. Feel free to mention reward money.

Those are among the guidelines for law enforcement officials now scrambling to interview more than 5,000 young men who have come to the United States from countries with suspected terrorist links on student, tourist or business visas within the last two years. In a Nov. 9 memorandum to federal prosecutors and antiterrorism task forces, Attorney General John Ashcroft asked that the interviews be completed within 30 days, a schedule he acknowledged was ambitious.

The memorandum includes a list of set questions -- about the interviewees' activities in the United States, familiarity with terrorist groups and experience with weapons -- and requests written reports on each conversation.

As the nation's 94 United States attorneys began doling out lists of names and addresses to local and state investigators yesterday, several officials expected to carry out the sweeping task said that Washington did not explain how the list was compiled and that they remained confused about how to proceed. One investigator who spoke on the condition of anonymity said the vast exercise ''puts a tremendous strain on agencies'' and raises ''all sorts of civil liberties issues.''

Arab and Muslims in the United States said they had already suffered weeks of ethnic profiling and discrimination from neighbors and strangers and now feel the government is supporting suspicion based on background, not behavior.

''I know it's an emergency, but we've got to be smart enough to watch that we don't throw away the freedoms of what America is all about,'' said Ismael Ahmed, director of the Arab Community Center for Economic and Social Services in Dearborn, Mich., home to the nation's largest concentration of people from the Middle East. ''It could be students now, green card holders next, citizens after that. We've got to be careful.''

In his memorandum, Mr. Ashcroft emphasized that ''these individuals were not selected in order to single out a particular ethnic or religious group,'' and that they should not be treated as criminal suspects.

''The list was generated by taking a population of individuals and applying to that population a set of generic parameters,'' the memorandum says. ''These individuals were selected for interviews because they fit the criteria of persons who might have knowledge of foreign-based terrorists.''

Those on the list are men ages 18 to 33; officials declined to specify the countries where their visas were issued. The United States attorney in Vermont, Peter W. Hall, said those on his district's short list were not from the Middle East. But officials said that most of the 5,000 names had Middle Eastern connections. In Los Angeles, an official said the 100 people on his list were mainly Arabs who share characteristics with the hijackers, such as being enrolled in flight training schools or scheduled to attend community colleges.

Many officials across the country said they had yet to start the interviews and refused to discuss it. ''We are following the guidelines,'' said Fred Alverson of the United States attorney's office in Ohio. ''I can't give any more specifics.''

Mindy Tucker, a spokeswoman for the Justice Department, compared the interview project to a neighborhood canvass after a murder.

''This is a preventative effort, focused on information gathering,'' Ms. Tucker said. ''The instructions are clear. These are voluntary interviews, and anyone who doesn't want to answer questions doesn't have to.''

Some civil liberties experts said such broad questioning of a group of foreigners was highly unusual, if not unprecedented.

''The legal dividing line between what's O.K. and what's not depends on exactly what they do, and with what tone,'' said Susan Herman, a professor at Brooklyn Law School. ''Law enforcement people can always ask questions, and you don't have to answer. But people do have a tendency to think that if they're being asked questions, they should answer. Immigrants may be especially intimidated and feel they have to answer questions.''

Among the concerns of Arab leaders and civil liberties advocates was what would happen if people's visas are found to be expired.

In a companion memorandum to officials, also dated Nov. 9, the deputy attorney general says that ''while the primary purpose of these interviews is not to ascertain the legality of the individuals' immigration status, the federal responsibility to enforce the immigration laws'' is important. Interviewees suspected of being here illegally are to be reported to the Immigration and Naturalization Service, the memorandum says.

The newly announced interviews come after hundreds of foreign students have already been questioned by law enforcement officers in recent weeks. Raheem Yaseer, deputy director of the Center for Afghanistan Studies at the University of Nebraska in Omaha, said F.B.I. agents have been polite, but left the students feeling uncomfortable nonetheless.

''They think it is a kind of discrimination, because they are not picked out randomly,'' Mr. Yaseer said. ''There are lots of Latinos and there are lots of other people here, people from India -- they are not questioned.''

In Pullman, Wash., at Washington State University, which has courted students from wealthy Persian Gulf states, an administrator said he did not know how his school and other universities would be affected, but that he would comply with ''whatever the government mandates.''

''I personally wouldn't have any problem in helping to do what's necessary,'' said David Guzman, the school's registrar.

In Southern California, along a strip of Palestinian coffee shops not far from Disneyland known as Little Gaza, the sight of F.B.I. agents trolling for tips among store owners has become commonplace. Mazen Almoukdad, manager of a cellphone store, said business was off 40 percent because college students from Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait are afraid to stroll the streets.

There was a mix of apprehension and acceptance among those who might just be on the Justice Department's list.

Mahmoud Khatid, a 36-year-old Palestinian who said he spent three years in the custody of the immigration service, said that despite his experience the questioning of Middle Eastern men about their knowledge of terrorist cells was understandable, under the circumstances of the Sept. 11 attacks.

''Any country would do these procedures,'' Mr. Khatid said. ''There is nothing to worry about. A questioning is a questioning.''

But Arsalan Iftikhar, a law student at Washington University in St. Louis and a spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, was one of many people who compared the situation to ''The Siege,'' a movie in which hundreds of Arabs are rounded up after a terrorist attack.

''We want to see the perpetrators brought to justice, but this sort of sweeping investigation really carries with it the potential of marginalizing an entire demographic,'' Mr. Iftikhar said. ''We never thought they would go for people who are here lawfully. How do we know the next step is not going for citizens of Middle Eastern descent also? Where do we draw that line?''

Photo: Mazen Almoukdad, the manager of a cellular phone store in Anaheim, Calif., said business was off 40 percent because Arab college students were afraid to walk the streets. At right is Hamid Abdullah, an employee. (Gerard Burkhart for The New York Times)